PetesWeekly

Nobody really knows anything about diabetes, although the concept of daily injections inspires terror in most people. The first time I heard about the existence of such a disease I was about 10 years old. I was standing in a queue outside matrons office, waiting for a vaccination.

Each kid that had gone in had come out clutching his left arm and grimacing. (Sadly it was a school for boys only, with a few exceptions that I will come to shortly.) The fellow behind me mentioned a disease that he had heard about where you needed an injection everyday. I couldn’t imagine anything worse.

As it happened, I got that disease. And, in hindsight, I can imagine a lot worse. Prior to 1925 there was no cure for this disease. The only treatment available was a gentle form of starvation which led to inevitable death 10 months later. And after an astoundingly joyous 40 years as a diabetic, I’m happy to say that there are many, many worse ways to live a life.

The best thing about a school for boys only is if you are the only girl there. When I started, there weren’t any girls, and the teachers bore the brunt of all of our youthful lust. A year later, and a few new teachers arrived with their children. Their children included two goddesses. They could have looked like Frankenstein’s mother, and they would have nonetheless been goddesses. That’s the value of being the only two girls in a school of 200 boys.

One of them was a tomboy. And frankly, she was not genetically blessed. The other, Joanne, was the most beautiful human being I had ever seen. Sadly, 199 other boys felt the same way. She had no shortage of suitors. I hadn’t yet been diagnosed as diabetic, so I stood no chance, not even with the sympathy vote.

Stephen King, I think it was, commented on going back to one of his childhood neighbourhoods, and being astounded at how small some of the big buildings seemed. I went back to my boarding school 30 years later, and, indeed, it was much smaller. The “big” hall wasn’t very big at all. Thirty years on, it was no bigger than a large classroom, which was the role it now served for the kindergarten kids.

In hindsight, I can understand that. Who can forget the food fights? Some of the more accomplished of my peers could throw food from one corner right across the length of the room. This should have been a clue that the room wasn’t all that big.

One of my enduring memories was of the headmaster, Roger Carter, entering the room in the middle of one of these fights. Somebody had just launched a hard boiled egg towards the very door he entered. The egg did not hit him. At least, not quite.

Instead it hit the  wooden floor at speed a yard or so in front of him, left a solid white and yellow streak before gently mounting his left polished brogue, painting it with a jaunty stripe.

Isn’t it astounding how deep and instant a silence can be?

This past week, I started tentatively working on a book about diabetes. I have read a few books written by diabetics. None of us like the disease. All of us agree that the disease defines us. But most of us see the disease as “the enemy”.

Kevin Kelly, in his superb book “What Technology Wants” talks about “events”. I am just such an event. So are you. For a very short time in the history of the universe a bunch of atoms coalesce to form Peter Carruthers. Not only that, but every seven years or so, all those atoms move on to new “events”, most of which are much more exciting than I am, like trees,  penguins, and the carbon fbre casing of a ‘new’ iPad.

The miracle, I think, is that most of us function so well. Most of us start at the front of the queue, genetically speaking. I am not one such person.

The disease is very frustrating. Just when you think the day is going splendidly, your chemical balance doesn’t, and you start stuttering or trying to open the front door with the ignition key of the car. (Or in my most famous family case, taking a leak into the dustbin in my study. I guess that’s not unusual for some men, but mine was a wireframe basket.)

So, yes, that doesn’t add too much joy to the average day. Most diabetics will devote at least 30 min each day just to the task of staying alive. Heck, that’s more time than most people spend washing. (I know a few folk who spend a lot less time that that washing, and make it a habit to avoid them.)

As I see it, however, I am astoundingly lucky. If I had been born in 1908, instead of 1958, then I wouldn’t be sitting at my office in Norway. I would be at one with the universe, so to sepak.

I would have been diagnosed at the same age, and I would have followed the same treatment that most diabetics received early in the 20th century: slow starvation until death.

Imagine reaching into the engine of your new car and randomly pulling out a few wires. Chances are that the car is going to behace erratically in future. Much the same applies to us diabetics.

After 20 years or so of manually balancing our blood sugar levels, and screwing it up far more often than not, it’s no surprise that our atoms begin to dissemble. The things that go wrong are related to small blood vessels – blindness, kidneys, and the tips of fingers and toes.

Blindness, dialysis, and gradual amputations – well – they’re not much fun. On balance, however, I would rather have a pretty full life and face a few challenges at the end than have my life start 6 feet underground. Life is wonderful, and I wouldn’t want mine any other way.

Diabetes is no more my enemy than my left foot is.

(I was diagnosed a type I diabetic in 1971. 2011 is my 40th year as a diabetic.)